ON DIDACTIC POETRY
(1827)
Didactic poetry is not a distinct poetic style or genre in the same sense as the lyric, epic, and dramatic. Every one will understand this who recognizes that the latter differ in form, and therefore didactic poetry, which derives its name from its content, cannot be put in the same category.
All poetry should be instructive, but unobviously so. It should draw the attention of a reader to the idea which is of value to be imparted; but he himself must draw the lesson out of it, as he does out of life.
Didactic or schoolmasterly poetry is a hybrid between poetry and rhetoric. For that reason, as it approximates now one and now the other, it is able to possess more or less of poetic value. But, like descriptive and satirical poetry, it is always a secondary and subordinate species, which in a true æsthetic is always placed between the art of poetry and the art of speech. The intrinsic worth of didactic poetry, that is to say, of an edifying art-work, written with charm and vigor, and graced with rhythm and melody and the ornament of imaginative power, is for that reason in no way lessened. From the rhymed chronicles, from the verse-maxims of the old pedagogues, down to the best of this class, all have their value, considered in their place and taken at their proper worth.
If one examines the matter closely and without prejudice, it strikes one that didactic poetry is valuable for the sake of its popular appeal. Even the most talented poet should feel himself honored to have treated in this style a chapter of useful knowledge. The English have some highly praiseworthy examples of this style. With jest and seriousness they curry favor with the crowd, and then discuss in explanatory notes whatever the reader must know in order to understand the poem. The teacher in the field of æsthetics, ethics, or history has a fine chance to systematize and clarify this chapter and acquaint his students with the merit of the best works of this kind, not according to the utility of their contents, but with reference to the greater or less degree of their poetical value.
This subject should properly be quite omitted from a course on æsthetics, but for the sake of those who have studied poetry and rhetoric, it might be presented in special lectures, perhaps public. Here a true comprehension, as everywhere, will prove of great advantage to practice; for many people will grasp the difficulty of weaving together a piece out of knowledge and imagination, of binding two opposed elements together into a living bodily whole. The lecturer should reveal the means by which this reconciliation can be made, and his auditors, thereby guarded against mistakes, might each attempt in his own way to produce a similar effect.
Among the many ways and means of effecting such a fusion, good humor is the most certain, and could also be considered the most suitable, were pure humor not so rare.
No more singular undertaking could easily be thought of than to turn the geology of a district into a didactic, and indeed highly imaginative, poem; yet this is what a member of the Geological Society of London has done, in an attempt to popularize in this way a subject, and promote a study usually insufferable to the thought of travelers.